


Secrets Kept and Revealed

by RosalindInPants



Series: Choice and Consequence [1]
Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Gen, Morgan is not as sneaky as she wants to be, Wolfe can sense Obscurists, canon gap fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23036554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosalindInPants/pseuds/RosalindInPants
Summary: Morgan has one goal in Alexandria: erase her records and get away. But Scholar Wolfe is far too perceptive. An Ink and Bone canon gap filler.
Relationships: Morgan Hault & Christopher Wolfe
Series: Choice and Consequence [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1566844
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Secrets Kept and Revealed

**Author's Note:**

> I am totally headcanoning that Scholar Tyler was an Iron Tower orphan like Wolfe: it explains how Tyler knew so much to be able to help Morgan.

Morgan almost thought she had escaped undetected. There had been the spark of recognition, power calling to power, when Scholar Wolfe entered the room, and she’d thought she might die of fear when Captain Santi seized her arm, but they’d taken her documents and let her go. She’d been so sure that they would take her away, but they let her go.

That had to mean that Wolfe hadn’t recognized her. His power had called to hers, but he hadn’t felt it. Scholar Tyler had been right. Wolfe was like him, a reject of the Iron Tower without enough power to recognize an Obscurist unless he knew to look for one. Scholar Tyler had known her for years before recognizing her as an Obscurist. She would be safe from Wolfe, too, as long as she was careful. As Scholar Tyler had explained it, those without sufficient talent could not see the threads of power woven through the world as easily as Morgan did.

The lucky bastards.

Her first sign that she’d underestimated Wolfe came when the Scholar brought her fellow Englishman, Jess Brightwell, back to Ptolemy House. The noise of their return had been enough to wake her from a day of exhausted slumber, but if that hadn’t done it, Captain Santi’s appearance in her room would have. She never slept so deeply as to miss the presence of someone so near.

Tall and built like the soldier he was, Santi would have been imposing even without the gold-and-black uniform he wore. With that uniform, he was a vision from her nightmares, and she was alert in an instant, heart pounding.

She sat up, fingers curling around the knife under her pillow.

His eyes went right to it, but he said nothing about it. Only, “Your assistance is needed. Come with me.”

Glad she’d developed the habit of sleeping fully clothed, not entirely certain whether to be relieved or terrified, she followed him to Jess Brightwell’s room, concealing the knife in her sleeve. Santi's eyes flicked over it there, too, but still he said nothing.

Jess lay on his bed, his shallow breathing the only sign of life. Wolfe stood over him, an unreadable expression on his shadowed face.

Power reached for power, hers a rushing current, Wolfe's a dammed river. The waters couldn’t touch. He couldn’t sense her. She hoped.

Still looking down at Jess, Wolfe said, “Postulant Hault. It seems I will have an assignment for you today, after all. You are to monitor Postulant Brightwell. Should he wake, he may have food and water as needed. Under no circumstances should he get out of bed before morning. Sit on him if you have to.”

She nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Scholar Wolfe turned his gaze on her, a look that seemed to pierce right through her. “Consider this a warning, Postulant Hault. This course of study, as you can see, is far from safe. Should you wish to spare yourself the danger, you need only refuse to take a tile tomorrow.”

Morgan had no idea how to respond to that, so she only said, “Thank you, sir.”

Wolfe considered her a moment longer, his eyes narrowed. “Say nothing of this to your fellow Postulants,” he said at last. “You can keep a secret, can you not?”

She couldn’t shake the impression that he was talking about more than the tiles.

* * *

A full week passed without incident. She woke with the others, ate with the others, sat through Scholar Wolfe’s lectures, answered his relentless questions, participated in field exercises, and retired to her room exhausted each night. She split the nights between slumber and prying her way into the formulae of the Codex, and woke tired, but not so exhausted as she’d been on the run.

It was enough to make her think she might be able to do this. It was enough to make her heart ache with the loss of her childhood dream of becoming a Scholar. No matter how well she erased her records, it would never be safe to stay.

A new week began, and with it, a lengthy research assignment. While the class grumbled and scoured the Codex for the required information, Scholar Wolfe called students to a side room one at a time for testing. He followed the order of their class ranking, which meant Morgan was last. She hadn’t had enough time yet to catch up to the others. Not that it mattered. All that mattered were the records, and she came closer to solving that puzzle with each passing night.

When she entered the small, bare room, Captain Santi shut the door behind her, leaving her alone with Scholar Wolfe.

Wearing his usual black robes and sour expression, Wolfe stood beside a desk in the middle of the room. A Codex and a Blank lay on the desk, both plain Library-issue volumes. The same ones made available for public use in every Serapeum in the world. 

Wolfe nodded to the lone chair in front of the desk, and she sat.

With a wave of one hand toward the two books, Wolfe said, “This will be a test of your speed and precision in executing searches and retrieving documents. Do you have any questions before we begin?” 

There was something odd in his tone that brought her suspicions screaming to the forefront of her mind. He knew. He had to know.

She had to prove him wrong. “No, sir. I am ready,” she said, reaching for the books. She saw the jaws of the trap, but no way to avoid it save to step lightly and hope it wouldn’t spring.

“Cleopatra gifted the Great Library with a collection of original works,” Wolfe began. “What were their titles?”

Morgan took out her stylus, opened the Codex, and set to work. The first few questions were simple enough that it was no trouble to keep her powers in check while she worked, but with every question, Wolfe increased the pace and complexity. She couldn’t keep up. He was asking for too much, too fast, and she had to resist the siren song of the formulae, the symphony of power flowing between her hands and the two books. She focused on the process of searching, the thrill of knowing exactly how to find what Wolfe asked for, the even greater thrill of hiding her powers beneath the Library's nose.

There had never been any chance of success. Wolfe barked out his orders one on top of the other, and she should have stopped, should have admitted defeat and risked the consequences of failure over discovery, but she kept going, too caught up in the task to think, until the formulae hummed beneath her fingertips and sprang from the page into hovering, glowing life.

The truth hung between them, shining and deadly, and Scholar Wolfe watched her with a strange light in his eyes.

“I will give you credit for sheer bravado, Postulant Hault,” he said. “Few with your talent would dare walk openly in the streets of Alexandria, let alone enroll themselves in Library training. But you play a dangerous game. What do you hope to accomplish by joining this class?”

“I wanted to be a Scholar,” she answered as the glowing light of the formulae crashed back down into the books, the power released. It wasn’t a lie. Not really. She had wanted it, with all her being, right up until it was torn irrevocably from her grasp.

Wolfe shook his head, looking almost sad. “I am no fool, Postulant. Nor are you. Young and reckless, certainly, but not so foolish as to believe that a possibility. You want something other than a career with the Library. What is it?” He started off harsh as always, but by the final words, his voice had softened until it was almost gentle. Almost kind. Nothing like what she had come to expect from the ruthless taskmaster that terrorized her class.

“In Oxford, I accidentally gave myself away when I opened the formulae. I need to erase the record so they can’t track me down. I couldn’t do it there, but I can do it here.” That much of the truth, she would give him, but no more. She wouldn’t tell Wolfe how she knew to erase the records. After all Scholar Tyler had done for her, she would not betray him to Wolfe.

She expected more questions, but Wolfe nodded, his expression sharpening again into his usual frown. “Do it, then. Quickly. If they had your trail in Oxford, they will find you here, and soon. I assume that I do not need to tell you the consequences of discovery.”

“No, sir.” She bowed over the books, inert now without her touch to infuse them with power, her heart like a bird beating its wings against the cage of her ribs. “Thank you, sir.”

In a swirl of black silk, Wolfe turned away. “Don’t thank me. I am doing you no favors,” he said, sharp and bitter.

But he was. He was letting her go. She didn’t know why, but he was letting her go. Pushing the chair back, she stood and turned toward the door.

“Go,” he said, and then, more softly, almost too softly to hear. “I cannot protect you.”

She went.


End file.
